Modern public mobile communication networks allow users or subscribers to access advanced data communication services using their respective mobile devices. Applications that use these data services may take various forms and may include location-based service applications provided by the operator of the mobile communication network or a third-party service provider. Common examples of location based services include mapping and navigation. To support such location based services, a wireless carrier or operator of a mobile communication network may provide location assistance services, also known as assisted GPS (or “A-GPS”), to mobile devices through the mobile communication network. A-GPS allows mobile devices to utilize resources of the mobile communication network to improve performance and reduce latency in acquiring GPS location information, particularly in areas with poor GPS signal reception.
In addition to such A-GPS for mobile handset devices (e.g., cellular phones) on the mobile communication network, there has been a growing demand in recent years for wireless network-based A-GPS for “non-traditional” mobile devices on a private network. Such “non-traditional” devices may include, for example, tracking devices equipped with GPS receivers. Such non-traditional mobile devices may be similar to mobile devices for use on the public mobile communication networks but configured for private network operation, however, in some instances the non-traditional mobile devices will have more limited components and operational capabilities.
For example, an enterprise may use mobile location tracking devices in a private network for asset tracking purposes. Such a device will have a transceiver or other communication interface for communications over the private network as well as some GPS reception and processing capability. However, the tracking device may need network assistance to efficiently determine location from GPS signals. Such a mobile device may access an A-GPS service of a public wireless network service provider (or “carrier”) for assistance in determining geographic location, that is to say, in obtaining final GPS location fixes.
The carrier's wireless network generally includes an A-GPS server for processing location requests from any mobile device based on a device identifier and a network address associated with the device. In general, devices on a private network are assigned private network addresses that are translated into a public network addresses (e.g., a public Internet Protocol or “IP” addresses) by a Network Address Translation or “NAT” device of the private network for communicating with computing devices external to the private network. However, since device authentication by the A-GPS server of the carrier's wireless network is based in part on a carrier-specific network address assigned to each mobile device by the wireless network, the wireless network would be unable to authenticate devices sending requests from private networks.
Conventional solutions attempt to address such authentication issues regarding devices operating via a private network by implementing a proprietary messaging scheme at each device and assigning authentication credentials (e.g., unique identifier and password) to each private network device, e.g., for accessing a particular enterprise application. However, such conventional solutions may cause reduced performance and increase network latency due to the additional operations needed for processing proprietary messages for different private networks and authenticating the mobile device for different applications associated with each private network.